woolie

Development creates its own momentum. Hopefully we'll start seeing more 6-8 story apartment blocks in these new rounds. I didn't know about the Morgan Group development; is that the Calais expansion?

Personally, I'm most excited about the Milhaus -- it will be the first high density block East of Main (excepting a few small condo buildings.) Now, personally I think East Midtown is one of the best kept secrets in Houston -- very reasonable values, very high quality street construction and landscaping, quiet, Baldwin park, excellent freeway access, etc. etc. But it's all townhomes, and I think it's well primed for higher density.

Yes, like Yakuza says. The 125 acres for the golf course is already highly programmed -- but to a very specific use that limits both the number of users (a few hundred), and the appeal of the activity (high investment, large block of time, no appeal for children.) It might as well be a polo field. Should the city use such a large block of a very precious and limited resource for this use?

Well, it's neighborhood folklore that Houston's grossly inadequate sewer system severely hurt development in midtown for decades. Downtown was exempted from the moratorium, but midtown was forced to skip out the 70s and 80s booms. Then there was a big recession, followed by little interest in urban living until the 2000s (less crime, changing attitudes, green-consciousness, etc.) By that time, the rail was already coming in. If we're arguing causality, there's a clear case that a number of businesses, particularly around Ensemble/HCC station, are clearly TOD and doing well.

However, there will always be big city agency shenanigans that always grease the wheels of commerce...

Anyway, let's unpack the hypothetical developments in the article:

1. Parking garage for 1000 cars

2. "Mixed-income multifamily community (perhaps partially student housing) with retail, office."

3. Independent Arts Collaborative

4. Boutique hotel in antique store

5. Church-backed "affordable housing development" for 100 units

6. Code enforcement building sold to apartment developer

7. Sunnyland Furniture building into "mixed-use retail/office/multifamily."

8. "Holy Rosary Catholic Church's historic rectory"

Some of these may be combined; the text of the article wasn't totally clear.

Other rumored developments:

1. Camden superblock

2. Superblock park

3. New Crosspoint development at Milam/Tuam

4. Milhaus apartment development

I'm happy to see Studio RED boosting Midtown. After all, their office is barely a few blocks from my house. I almost wish I was an architect -- it'd be an easy walk.

MORE!!

Both previous renderings looked much better. Maybe they'll put up a better one.

Wilson Stationary Building 1920's

INTERIOR 1965

INTERIRO AND WAREHOUSE

WAREHOUSE

So beautiful. And street cars. :cries:

I believe it means they're looking for people willing help to finance it through a loan (debt) and cash (partner equity.) Basically advertising investment opportunity.

But yeah, this building is... not a looker.

Yeah, I don't know how that works either. The old antique store is a set of 1-2 story buildings, and not very pretty. I suppose it could end up something like La Colombe d'Or.. but just not seeing it now. Maybe it will be knocked down and rebuilt from scratch.

Also, a 1,000 car parking garage is quite large. Estimating... the roof level of a the 3100 Main St. garage, a large garage covering 1 full city block, contains about 200 spaces, and it has 8 levels of parking. So, that's maybe a 1400-1600 space garage.

So? Zoning is stupid. And property owners have every right to petition the city to have the zone changed. You are a sucker if you think zoning can protect you against a more powerful interest.

Ironically enough, I opened this thread and wrote this reply while waiting for the train at this very station.

Although

However

Finally

Hospital is another word for "high paying jobs." Especially great when those great professional jobs are dropped within walking distance of my house.

And, off topic, Google Earth has fairly nice 3D rendering for Houston.

Approximate boundaries and land areas:

Main park area (Red)

94 acres

Zoo (Blue)

54 acres

Museum / Botanical (Green)

26 acres

Parking (Purple)

14 acres

Is this the highest and best use of this park land? My rough outline of the course and club house is about 125 acres.

Note: Topic title should be "COURSE" obviously. "Coarse" is jargon in my field... Can someone correct the title?

Typical weekday ridership is 35-45k, with some peak days in the 50s and 60s for events. The stats indicate OTC was adding 4-5k per day above baseline, or this might be boardings at a particular station... You can tell when a major conference is occurring in town due to all the badges and suits you'll see on the train.

Yes, parking at the VA is awful. Fortunately there is a shuttle bus I can use from my office when I need to go over there.

...

It's just an article I came across today, from Seattle. It's not the specifics of the situation there, but I think development in Houston will be more and more regulated by neighborhood associations in the absence of zoning and land use regulation. Afton Oaks, Ashby, etc. As the city becomes more dense, the once loosely defined boundaries of neighborhoods are starting to harden as they become real political entities staking out space to protect their interests. As in this article about Seattle, Houston's nicer single family neighborhoods in close-in areas are coming under much stronger pressure for multi-family development. Informal groups will become formal as a reaction to this pressure, start defining themselves as in opposition to developers. Some of Houston's "pro growth, developer friendly" attitude might shatter.

All of this suburban hate crap is boring and useless. Of course the city is more exciting, but many can't afford it. Not to mention the makeup of Houston's metro area makes it impossible for all 6 million residence to live inside the loop, which, and as Pleak mentioned, you would have to eliminate The Heights, etc to make your point stick.

Actually, I think the loop is vastly underpopulated for a city the size of Houston. I'm a density and transit advocate. It doesn't bother me at all that millions of people live in the suburbs -- it's just not my style. However, I think that as the core of a huge metro area with 6m and growing people, the loop will have to dramatically fill in. Only a few census tracts inside 610 reach 10k people per square mile. I would like to see all of the transit corridors that are served by LRT (...or fixed route BRT) to hit 10-15k, or higher. Even then, we're talking a fraction of the *average* density of NYC, Paris, London, Tokyo, etc. which are 25-50k for hundreds of square miles with many areas 100-200k.

And yes, it will always be impossible to touch large swaths of rich, powerful single family residential inside 610... but we're only going to see more and more 6-10 story apartment block infill as we start building out our transit system.

I was being sarcastic - left out the smiley. Just typing a response to the pervasive attitude on HAIF that if you don't live/work inside the loop and more specifically, in the Heights, Mid-Town or DT, than you are inconsequential and and should not seen in the city limits, let alone breathe the rarefied air.

Yes, this is HAIF. The "A" is for Architecture. Are you surprised that people who like architecture find the suburbs boring and soulless?

Anyway -- there are some online communities filled with people who love the suburbs and hate everything inside the beltway. Enjoy chron.com comment sections -- especially threads about "illegals" and "urban youths."

The future of Houston:

http://crosscut.com/2012/05/21/urban/108702/seattle-neighborhoods-land-use-reform-density/

I like to drive up and down Bissonet whenever I can to help increase the traffic count. I'll even go out of my way to use Bissonet as my crosstown street. Fortunately my car has "stealth mode" and looks like every other car in the neighborhood. I might even put a "Stop Ashby" sticker on it for further cloaking.

< standard rant about I10 being an awful place to put office buildings >

Not sure how you can tell that the quality is exceptionally poor from that one picture--they look like all the other townhomes in the area (albeit that likely suggests poor quality).

It's easy to tell the construction quality if you watched them go up. And they were abandoned halfway through, with the bare plywood sheathing exposed to the elements for years. Someone then bought them for 70k each, finished them, and flipped them within a year for 300+k.

Observe, before and after:

http://www.har.com/HomeValue/1706-BREMOND-ST-HOUSTON-77004-M16767394.htm

http://www.har.com/HomeValue/1706-BREMOND-ST-HOUSTON-77004-M85903774.htm

The townhomes in your first pic are going to be dumps in a short amount of time. Cheap materials. Cheap windows. Bad placement of windows. And, what in the world were they thinking by spacing them that way? Those side windows must offer some great views...

Obviously the developer wanted to add 50k to the price by calling them "detached, free standing."